French Take Ailing Palestinian Into Custody

Ailing Palestinian guerrilla leader George Habash, 65, has been placed under guard at a Paris hospital and will be interrogated in connection with terrorist cases if medically possible, a Cabinet minister said today.

France’s decision to allow the Palestinian guerrilla leader into the country for medical treatment was sharply criticized Thursday at home and abroad as giving shelter to an acknowledged terrorist.

Social Affairs Minister Jean-Louis Bianco said a dossier on Habash, whose entry into France for treatment has created a furor, had been opened by Judge Jean-Louis Brugiere, France’s top anti-terrorism investigator.

Bianco said Habash could be interrogated as early as today, but the investigator did not specify what cases might be raised.

The outcry over Habash triggered the resignations of at least four officials.

The president of the French Red Cross and three senior government advisers resigned Thursday amid the outcry over Habash.

The presidential palace said that Georgina Dufoix, president of the French Red Cross, had offered her resignation as adviser to President Francois Mitterrand, who accepted it.

Foreign Minister Roland Dumas demanded the resignations of his Cabinet director, Bernard Kessedjian, and his secretary general, Francois Scheer, the ministry said.

The office of Prime Minister Edith Cresson said that the Cabinet director at the Interior Ministry, Christian Vigouroux, had also offered his resignation.

Habash, whose Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine pioneered guerrilla hijackings of airliners, was admitted to the Red Cross Henri Dunant Hospital in Paris on Wednesday.

He was flown from Tunis, Tunisia, aboard a chartered ambulance plane after suffering an apparent stroke. French police were stationed outside the hospital.

The decision to admit Habash for treatment had earlier sparked angry condemnation from French opposition leaders. The conservative Rally for the Republic issued a statement saying it was “deeply shocked” by the decision.

Mitterrand, moving to play down the controversy, said that Habash’s stay in France should be “extremely brief.”

He said that moving Habash to France was the result of contacts between the Palestinian and French Red Cross.